What should we do with our vengeance?

Once taboo and condemned in our societies, vengeance is making a comeback. Elevated by literature—novels, plays—that has often glorified it, from The Count of Monte Cristo to Les Liaisons dangereuses, from Hecuba to Hamlet, is vengeance changing sides? Writing to avenge one's race, name, gender… Could vengeance, once destructive, become creative? Where does revenge end and vengeance begin?

A discussion around La NRF No. 661, “What Should We Do With Our Vengeances?”, which brings together major voices of contemporary literature—Camille Laurens, Leïla Slimani, Kev Lambert, Vanessa Springora, Philippe Claudel, Laurent Gaudé, Rim Battal…—along with a special critical section on noir fiction, and a dialogue across centuries between Paul Claudel and Éric Ruf, as The Satin Slipper returns to the Cour d'honneur at the Festival d’Avignon.

With Camille Laurens writter and member of the Académie Goncourt, Éric Ruf director of Le Soulier de satin

Hosted by Olivia Gesbert, editor-in-chief of NRF